Focus: 100% pure and concentrated: chain store retailing
The inexorable rise of specialty retailing and the expansion of the GMS leaders is well-known and increasingly well-documented. There is less awareness and discussion of how quickly the best of these chain operators are moving to mop up market share from smaller competitors and the traditional behemoths of the industry. Such a lack of awareness is partly because dominance is being achieved so quickly and with so little fuss, and, as always in retailing, the here and now masks just how dynamic the sector truly is. Market share is increasing, and this is just the beginning.

Kokubu: the defiant independent
Kokubu remains one of only three leading food wholesalers without clear ties to trading houses, and even this ignores operational partnerships. The company may still be the largest in terms of sales, but it increasingly is showing a political and business stance that must give even its few family shareholders nightmares.

Sanei's great leap forward
Sanei International has been in the news a lot recently, launching new brands, buying up companies and committing to overseas expansion. Until only a short while ago, Sanei was just a a middle-weight womenswear retail operation, it is now in the top five and expanding fast.

Sumitomo's fashion reach extends
Sumitomo competes with Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Itochu across sectors as diverse as electric power stations through arms sales, and even directly in the retail sector through supermarkets, drugstores, and fashion brands. Its long relationship with Otto Versant was often regarded as a sign of ambitions in the apparel business but for years there was little movement and Sumitomo fell way behind Mitsui and Itochu in influence in the fashion business. Signs are emerging of renewed energy.

Editorial: A lesson in the benefits of retail marketing

Eco's brings customers happy food
Eco’s, the mid-sized food supermarket chain with stores around Tokyo, is in the process of expanding its so-called Food Happiness store merchandising concept. The company claims up to 50% increased sales in like sized stores by using the method.

Chocolate for love
Valentines Day comes once a year— except in Japan where there's one for women and another one for men. Chocolate is the key gift for both days, however, and for upscale stores like department stores it is one of the largest sales seasons of the year.
Mitsukoshi leverages community blogging
The blog is now almost as ubiquitous in Japan as anywhere. Increasingly there are signs that Japanese companies are using the popular online journal tool for commercial purposes. Blogs, in the form of sophisticated mailing lists and noticeboards, are even available through mobile phones, a use not seen anywhere else. They are excellent community fostering tools. Even Mitsukoshi is doing it.

62 new shopping centers in 2004
2004 was the first year in the new century that the number of new shopping center developments exceeded 50 for the year. While Aeon clearly thinks otherwise, experts at the JSCA believe there is demand for smaller, more convenient shopping centers in the future.

¥2.24 trillion spent on reading in 2004
Book sales have risen for the first time in eight years. Although book sales include comics in book form, the rise does suggest a growing interest in reading words among Japanese young people as well as a burgeoning interest in the culture, or at least the love stories, of its close neighbor, South Korea.

Ito-Yokado pushes nursing goods corners
Japan's rapidly aging population is still not attracting the marketing initiatives it deserves. Yet at some leading retail stores, spotting a kaigo-yohin (nursing goods) corner is becoming an increasingly common experience. Japan could soon be the country with the easiest access to walking sticks and wheel chairs.

Sportswear makers grow overseas
Japan's sportswear manufacturers compete head to head with the big international brands in the domestic market, and increasingly so in overseas markets. All of the big three, Mizuno, Asics, and Descente, are planning major advances in overseas sales in the next three years.

Mail Boxes etc to grow by four times
The franchise of US chain Mail Boxes Etc, operated by Itochu Shoji in Japan, is to expand store numbers by four times in the next two years, with potential for up to 400 outlets nationwide. This is still below the original, over enthusiastic estimates made when Itochu first introduced the franchise in 1999, but it is an indication that the Japanese market is at last opening to independent small business services.

Kaizen systems hit retailing
As JC has reported previously, Ito-Yokado is pursuing a new kaizen system of store operation improvements. Now, similar initiatives have begun at other retailers, confirming the general need for better store management in Japan. Many chain stores look good on the surface, but often suffer from poor overall implementation and high costs.

Tokyo Style advances on China
Tokyo Style is the latest apparel firm to announce aggressive expansion in the Chinese market. Unlike the leading firms of Onward, World, and Sanei, Tokyo Style's reasons are more complicated than simply making a natural expansion into new markets. It is also looking to make up for problems at home.

Trans Continents set for relaunch
Trans Continents, a successful brand from the early 1990s, has made a come back under the tutelage of Kiacon, one of the remaining potential Daiei sponsors. It also marks the quickest exit for an investment fund in Japan's history. Kiacon may not have the same luck if it wins the bid for Daiei but Trans Continents could have a future.

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